Elena Kagan

NBC NEWS

SCOTUS GUT VOTING RIGHTS ACT

“The law had applied to nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and to scores of counties and municipalities in other states, including Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Congress remained free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk, but must do so based on contemporary data. But the chances that the current Congress could reach agreement on where federal oversight is required are small, most analysts say.

“In President Obama’s first term, he appointed two women to the high court: Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan. In a second term he may now have the opportunity to sit back and wait for the retirement of 76-year-old Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative. Most court watchers also expect the cagey Justice Anthony Kennedy, also 76, to retire in the next four years. If so, Obama will have the opportunity to turn a 5-4 conservative majority into a 5-4 liberal to moderate majority.

Not since the 1960s has the high court had before it as many civil liberty cases as it does today. The court will rule by June 2013 on gay marriage equality, affirmative action, voting rights, and personhood/abortion. These decisions impact millions of Americans’ everyday lives, their privacy, and their right to be “left alone.”